Simply From The Heart

I am a giving sort of person.  What I mean by that is that one of my 'love languages' is giving things to other people.  I love picking things out with those I love in mind, or just giving something that I know they would enjoy.  I love for them to know I was thinking of them and that I wanted to express that by physically giving something.  I suppose that's one reason (there are more selfish reasons too) why I've been having so much trouble getting into the holiday spirit this year.

Being a single mom, I don't think having an 'easy holiday' is a phrase that enters into my vocabulary.  But at Christmas, it's always been one time where I truly like to 'spoil' my son.  Now, I don't necessarily spoil him with high-end devices or expensive things, but at least in volume, I like him to have a lot of gifts - even small things like a bag of candy that he particularly likes, a book I know he's wanted (which used to be easy working for a book company), a movie he's wanted to see... just something about him coming out Christmas morning to see presents piled high beneath the Christmas tree fills me with warmth.  

But this year... somehow more so than any other year, I just haven't been able to get him even a  lot of those simple little things.  Fortunately, particularly since gift-buying is more difficult than usual with him becoming a teenager and the price of gifts rising exponentially, my son is definitely not the materialist sort - in fact, he used to get bored opening all the little packages I'd wrapped for him and just want to finish and play.  This year, I have just two little gifts for him.  They ARE exactly what he wanted, and they are all  (some might say  more) that I can give.  He doesn't know that yet, but what I've told him several times is, 'We're going to have a very small Christmas this year Briton, just so you know.  I'm doing the best I can.'  Without fail, his response is, 'I know, mom.  It's fine.'  Last night, I was watching a cartoon version of a favorite childhood author's book, 'Papa, Can You Get the Moon For Me?' by Eric Carle. (yeah, I still often watch cartoons) That is how I feel about my son.  If I could get the moon for him, I would, and happily so.  If I were a rich person, I would 'get the moon' for everyone that I cared about - I really would.  But more quickly for my son than anyone else.

Small Christmas?  What exactly does that mean?  Partly because of my sadness over not being able to do what I want to do (ie: buying him a lot of things and even making a nice dinner for him and my mom Christmas Eve), I haven't even felt like dragging out our scraggly little artificial tree and decorations this year.  So yesterday while my son was at school, I cleared our normal 'Christmas tree area' and laid down a simple red velvet covering and arranged our little nativity scene in the middle.  I put a Christmas candle on each side, haphazardly strung one string of lights around it, and that's it.  When he came home, I asked him if we should get out our tree - normally we put it up the day after Thanksgiving, so we're already way behind.  He asked what we'd do with the nativity set then, and I just said we'd have to move it to the side.  Briton said, 'No, I kind of like the nativity set where it is.'  ....  

The more I've thought about that since then, the more sense this makes - forgetting the tree and all the decorations and just making our humble little gift-given nativity set front and center.  God is also one who is a 'giving sort of person'.  Long before we were born, He gave us the world - literally.  Trees, plants, flowers, animals, wind, moon, air, night-time and day, sun, moon and stars.  He gave so much that we mutually take it for granted.  But on Christmas, He decided on one gift.  One gift that would change the world.  He didn't 'wrap it' in a crown and a throne coming with all the trimmings of the royalty that was deserved.  It was very simple.  A baby in a manager in a little stable with a thatched roof.  He gave with ultimate love and total sacrifice; and unlike me, He did not doubt or question the sufficiency of what He had to give nor did He become discouraged because this was not a 'season' where He could give as the world gives.  He offered what He could that was most dear and precious to His own heart, to us.  Without any thought or feeling of 'loss' for how we might think of Him or His gift if we didn't appreciate it.

I had forgotten the true gift behind Christmas for a little while, I am sorry to admit it.  But God, and I daresay even my son, have not.  I think, as time goes on, my son and I will remember this Christmas, and out little nativity scene from and center, more than most others.  And maybe a new Christmas tradition has even been born...


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PS - Now if I could only stop the cat from knocking over the wise men and trying to chew on the string of lights. :)

 

Assignment 5: The Pond

Author's Note: Just began writing to see what came out.  Another grand story idea. :p We'll see if this one goes anywhere.  Still working on it, but putting the start down here.

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Chaze stared numbly into the clear pool and wished for a fountain to wash away the emptiness left by the shouting voices still ringing in her ears.  Every so often she could still hear them in the distance when their voices rose particularly shrill.  Willfully blocking out all thought and feeling, she slowly laid down on her belly and laid her head on her folded arms. Idly, she smelled the warm earth, the sweet grass, felt the sun sinking comfortingly into her skin.  She watched the pond move restlessly beside her.  Dragonflies danced and skimmed over the murky surface, minnows darted below.  It seemed a separate world from hers, removed, and in that she envied the pond denizens hurrying about in their underwater life.  No one ever accused a minnow of not doing its chore right or a frog of not leaping correctly.  No one ever told the dragonfly it could not fly as well as the next or would never amount to anything.  All of those things and more (though in different context)she had heard just this morning let alone over her brief life-time.  Unlike the pond creatures however, when she was swatted, she went on living, her heart continued to beat.  For them, they were crushed physically and life just ended.  For Chaze, she was just as crushed, but not so visibly and life still went on.

Wonderingly, but still with little emotion, Chaze extended a hand and allowed her fingertip to pierce the surface of the water.  The water closed around her small digit and she could feel the weighty pull of the liquid against her skin.  There was smooth friction, but also a sort of closeness in the waters texture, almost like an embrace. 

Then, rather suddenly, she felt what seemed to be a wet kiss against her finger and it startled her so that she snatched back her finger and sat quickly upright.  She stared down into the pond and from just beneath a nearby strand of weed, she could make out the nose of a fish.  It was just a plain old gray fish, yet it seemed to be staring up at her rather expectantly.  Brow furrowing in confusion, Chaze stared back at it and saw her own reflection ghosting across the water's surface like a wispy cloud.  A small featured eight year old face with a scattering of freckles on the nose and clear, alabaster skin, waving blond hair flowing down across her shoulders, and blue curious eyes stared back at her and yet seemed to flow around the fish at the same time like a hologram across his watery sky.  The fishes mouth moved; not in the comically foolish way that most fish move their mouths, but in a wider, much more expressive manner that looked so like it was talking that Chaze's heart began to pound in excitement.  "I can't - I can't hear you."  She said to it in her native British accent. 

A bubble exited the fish's mouth in what Chaze took as exasperation and it suddenly wriggled its way up to the surface of the water and pushed its nose through the surface.  "I said,"  It said, perfectly proper.  "That if you're so displeased with the world you have up there,"  It pointed one fin up towards her sky.  "You would do well to try another."

Chaze's eyes widened at this.  "H-How do you mean?"

The fish made an impatient expression.  "Honestly, are all humans this dim?  I mean down here."  His fin pointed down and around him at the pond.  "Down here, among the water lilies and the sand, beneath the water.  It may not all be simple, but sound is much muted down here. You'll not find creatures foolishly blubbering about at each other and making such a clattering racket as all that."  He covered the sides of his head with his fins and grimaced distastefully in the direction of Chaze's home off in the distance across the field.

"But how am I to breathe?"  Chaze asked.  "I haven't gills and fins like you do."

The fish put a fin to its chin and paused thoughtfully.  "I'd...imagine you could breathe down here if you wanted to, just as the rest of us can.  After all, the Swan does grant such privileges to outsiders every once in a while."

"The swan?"  Chaze asked perplexed her gaze instinctively roaming over the water's surface for the large, white feathered plumage.

"No, no.  Not that kind of swan."  The fish said gravely.  "The Swan is a swan fish.  And He's ever so much more personable than those pestilential birds."

Chaze could not help but smile at the disgusted expression on the fish's face.  Still, she thought she'd rather have another minute to think before plunging down into the surface of the pond, and so she asked, "Are you a British fish?  Only, you talk very like me and I'm from Britain.  But this pond and this plantation are in America.  A place they call Georgia."

The fish put its fins to its 'hips' and said indignantly.  "I'm just as British as you.  Don't you remember your mum and dad adding that sack of swill fish from England to this pond when you'd arrived?"

Chaze thought back.  Yes, that was right, her father had taken the small bag of fish that she'd kept and dropped them into the pond.  She had been keeping them as pets, a little piece of home, but her father had grown angry with her at dinner for spilling her drink that second night and had poured out the fish into the pond water as punishment.  "Yes, I suppose I do remember.  That was when we first arrived here from England and daddy still walked around the grounds.  All he and mum ever do now is fight.  Mum doesn't reckon we should have come on this business holiday."

"Yes, I've heard them."  The fish said, seeming a trifle more gentle now.  "Big humans can be awfully stupid sometimes."  Chaze smiled again at his bluntness.  "That's why I thought it high time that someone took notice of you and offered you an alternative.  Now, do you want to come down here for a bit or not?"  He finished, abrupt once more.

*     *     *

(Much later)

"You didn't want to swim.  You wanted to drown."  He said it so matter-of-factly that Chaze

had to take pause and think about it for a minute... and after an awkward moment, she

realized that he was, in fact, stating the truth.  She *had* wanted to drown rather than

face another day as it had been.

just some working lyrics

The flames that flicker in the water so deep
Black as night in this dark reflection I keep
Dancing in and out of my mind
Why so distant, and why so unkind?
 The face that looks back at me is scarred by the years
Maybe not visible the path of all these tears
Pushing back my lost remembrance of You
You fought to keep hold of me when I ran away from You
Was this just a matter of more print on a page?
Another story to be told by another sage?

Memory holds me to the bottom of a drum
That pounds within my heart till all my soul is numb
Looking over at the ruins of the days
All that was left of me when You left me to my ways
 Am I really so much older now?
Am I really so much colder than time would allow?
I can't keep in time with the rhythm of Your feet
 My heart always did find a wandering beat
 Can't hold on to what I've always known
How swiftly now the breeze has made those ashes flow
And what's left behind is not the fruit but the rind
Can you make blossoms bloom from such a broken life?

Was it really just like flames to the wine?

It took away the potency, and left barely a sign

Fire to refine the soul, to drown away the sweet

Knock me flat upon my back to put me back up on my feet

Push my face into the ground to make me gasp for breath

So I will throw back my head and look to heaven for whats left

And hear again...

CHORUS
I'm all that you are when there's nothing else left

I am the pound when your heart beats in your chest

I'm breath and life when the sun dries you again

I am the river in the wilderness when there's no one else to send

I am the voice in the rain when you are drowning again

I am the force in the wind when your breath is stolen, my friend

I am... I am the Lord of this life

I can only look at me as the stranger that I am
Wandering in a world too deep for me to comprehend
Lost so easy in all the twisting, narrow ways
Trying to find the truth in me for far too many days
 Still so lost, that daily I must be found
Your voice so soft, I can barely hear the sound

Reflection On These Hard Times (not a poem)

Without meaning to sound ungrateful or melodramatic, for the past two years its sort of become unclear to me if these are 'hard times' for us, or if they've just become normal.

Certainly, at any given time for Briton and I to have things 'easy' would be foolish to assume or expect.  It just doesn't usually work that way for single-parent families.  But for several years anyway things were at least 'working'.  Life was hard, but survivable.  While not always knowing how to do things or what reaction to expect, steps forward were definable and relatively easy to take.  Now, having supposedly learned that survival is possible, even for such as we (a single mom raising a son), knowing how things are supposed to work - what I am supposed to do to make it work - (occasional stumbles and mistakes aside) somehow the very fundamental needs for survival that I learned have become so uncertain.  And it feels like God is searching for some sort of strength in me that I don't know if He will find... I don't know if its a grace that I am to wait for expectantly, a trust that I did not know existed, or if if IS a faith that He is trying to grow in me.  But He IS searching me... 

I don't know what I am to understand in this process, what is expected of me.  I don't know where I am headed or what I myself will find.  All I am left with is knowing and trusting in who He is and who He has been to us in the past.  And in the past, He has ALWAYS provided a 'spring in the wilderness', 'a river in the dry desert' like He promised us through Isaiah.  A WAY when there is no way.  I couldn't even count the miracles that He has performed.  I wouldn't even want to try.

Yet I suppose that in every 'child/students' journey it is for the teacher to choose when to remove all sense of foundation and earthly security and see how the child/student flies on their own.  What will they do?  Where will they go when all the normal avenues for help or escape have gone or have been exhausted?

I admit that for myself, even just missing some of those 'secure foundations' has been enough to make me spin.  But life won't stop for an of us to grieve - at least not as much as it feels the matter deserves.  And when we do get 'stuck with our wheels spinning', as patient as You are God, You know the right moment to prod us gently on.  The world is  not  nearly so kind and not nearly so understanding... 

So I am left to trust that You are in control of that unrelenting, unforgiving monster of a world that presses in all around.  But where do I begin again?  Where did the hard-but-survivable stop and the virtually/worldly impossible begin?  And how do I turn it around again?  Is turning it around to 'hard but survivable' again even what I want???  Or is it what YOU want for me???  Somehow - SOMEHOW my heart is saying 'no'.... But what other choice is there for us???

Today, as I look out on a perfect Christmas-Card world, I look back and remember that every step through those deserted wastelands where the miraculous springs were provided has been counted and measured by You.  And how one step - the very next one - has been the farthest I could ever look ahead.  But there have been so many that I can see stretching away behind...

Assignment 4: 'The Tree' or 'The Treehouse'

UPDATE: So, I've found a few websites who give me a template for this and I've begun filling them in... haven't figured out quite house to get them onto here though...  I suppose I can put in the web addresses, though not sure if that will work...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12jcybdrRXbc0NdO4ciuIs1TBVhi8VAlDXLEFxarHRvA/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AzR225LdpB8pQGg0Y2LTPJzx_jVDkqFtoR8g-Hx41dQ/edit

Not much there yet either, but at least it proves I'm working on it some. :)

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I had a dream last night that gave me an interesting idea for a story.  The beginning was nonsensical (as my dreams often are), but the rest of it was lucid and made sense and I think would make a great movie.

Main Cast/Characters:
Grayson 'Gray': Convict/murderer (preferably Hugh Jackman)
Weston 'Wes': Convict/child molestor (Gray's younger brother)
3 little girls: (as yet unnamed)

A criminal/murderer escapes from prison - either from the prison itself, or more likely from a hospital where he is being treated.  He is running from the police and ahead sees the only possible place he can think of to hide - a tree-house.  The next morning, a little girl enters the tree-house and finds the convict (I'm thinking of Hugh Jackman for him just because...well, because its Hugh Jackman - immensely talented, full of integrity, great with kids, and of course, super cute).  The convict has no interest in hurting the girl, and the little girl seems completely unafraid of him.  She seems to understand that the man does not want to be found extremely well... and takes his explanation at face value.  She decides to help him and asks what he needs.  It being late fall/early winter, the first thing he says he'll need is some blankets.  She smiles and offers him a quilt on a nearby tree-house shelf.  He asks if she can bring him back another with not quite so many holes.  Anyway, the little girl leaves him with "company", many of her stuffed toy friends and the man feels very odd trying to sleep looking up at a crowd of stuffed facing staring down at him. (comic relief)

The two develop a tight friendship along with the little girl's two older sisters and the three girls try to provide everything the man needs to leave.  He is very gentle with them, more so than you would ever imagine a convicted criminal/murderer of being.
Through the story of their deepening friendship (which lasts over several months), the man has dreams and flashbacks that show what his true crime really was.  He was primarily a robber for profit along with his younger brother.  On one particular heist, his brother and he encounter a small girl asleep in her bed.  Gray wants to leave the girl alone and get out of there, with or without what they came for after seeing the look in his brother's eyes.  Wes is staring at the little girl as though he wants to devour her...  There is a confrontation - Gray refuses to allow Wes to harm the child and guns are drawn.  The police break in on the scene with the two brothers guns aimed at each other.  Like a coward, Wes shoots his brother in the leg and escapes and Gray is captured by the police and taken into custody at the nearest hospital.  Wes ends up helping his brother escape from the hospital, but Gray soon learns that Wes had gone back and molested that little girl anyway.  There is a fight, and Gray ends up killing Wes because of his actions and to prevent further harm to other children Wes may (and very likely would) have harmed.  So now, Gray is not only an escaped convict, he is a murderer.

Also throughout the story, the tree around Gray and the girls and the tree-house will change its leaves in a symbol of time and the seasons changing.  Its where the story/movie will get its name.  Its where the friendship grows.  At some point, Gray learns that the little girls he is such good friends with are being abused by their father which fuels in him a hatred.  The tree-house is the girls hiding place too, and its why they seem to accept his own need to 'hide-out' without question.  Its the one place their father cannot find them.  Gray is faced with a strong internal/moral dilemma in remaining hidden, or exposing himself to come out of the tree-house and stop their father's abuse.

One day, the two elder sisters come to visit Gray and the youngest (the original little girl who found Gray) is not with them.  The two elder sisters explain that the youngest girl has become very sick and must stay in bed.  She continues to get worse and is completely bed-bound until one day, nearing death (she has bone cancer and needs a donor and round the clock care), she asks to see her friend Gray.  Unwilling to disappoint the girl, Gray steals out of the tree-house while the parents are supposedly out (nurse talks on the phone in the other room all the time, or falls asleep, so the girls think they can sneak him in).  The little girl is very weak, but extremely happy to see Gray.  Along with being deathly sick, however, Gray sees fresh bruises on the girl.... even through all the health issues she is having, her father is STILL molesting her... Sick.
Right after noticing this, Gray feels a rifle butt against the back of his ear.  The girls father has returned home and found this man, whom he recognizes from tv as the escaped convict/murderer in his girls room.  Gray slowly turns as ordered, but you can see the hatred and fury  on his face for this supposed father who is so wounding his little girls, especially the sick little one who cannot even run away any longer to hide.  Once again, Gray is faced with an enormous dilemma/choice.  He easily over-powers the father and takes away the gun pointing it at the dad instead.  Now... does he kill the father to protect the girls from the abuse, and traumatize them further (as they are watching him and ask amazed what he is doing - please don't shoot daddy)... or does he simply surrender to the police who come storming in at that point (the nurse called them) so the girls are not subjected to seeing their father killed??  Eventually, he decides on the latter, though he does inform the cops of the father's abuse...

Gray  is arrested, and the little girl is moved to the pediatric ward of a hospital.  One of the arresting officers takes pity enough on Gray that he allows him to visit the girl under heavy guard largely due to Gray's alerting them to the abuse she was suffering.  The visit is, obviously emotional.  And there Gray learns of the girl's actual condition and that she has a very short time yet to live if a matching bone marrow donor is not found.  Gray turns to the nurse on duty and says, "Test me."  Obviously, there are all kinds of legal/moral issues with this, but eventually, Gray convinces everyone that, convict and murderer or not, his bone marrow is not 'infected with his crimes', and they agree to test him.  While awaiting the test results, Gray is escorted to a maximum security prison where life if not at all fun for him.   He himself is molested by some of the prison's men pounding home to him even more the hell that his little friend (the girl) had been going through - and what had been done to the girl his brother had molested.  One day, however, after what seems/feels like years in the prison, Gray gets the word.  He is a match for the little girl.   He is an acceptable donor.

Gray is taken to the hospital and he and the child are prepped for surgery and he is able to see her during the preparation.  The little girl is close to death and barely conscious, but when she sees Gray, she reaches for him and cries.  Gray reaches and is able to hold her hand and the doctors and nurses allow it because it keeps the child calm while they prepare for the surgery.

...I haven't really decided on the result of the surgery yet - if the surgery itself is a success, yet the girl still dies, if its a success and she lives, if the surgery is NOT successful at all (though I'm leaning away from this), or maybe if the surgery is successful and the girl's body later rejects the transplant and she dies..... Not sure, will have to 'hatch' on that one.  Unlike a lot of people, I am NOT particularly a sucker for 'happy endings'.  I am a 'sucker for REAL endings'.  To me, that means elements of 'happiness', but it also means elements of sadness, and reality... so, it will most likely be a mix of both.
I would also like to give some closer to the fate of the other two older sisters and where they end up afterwards, tie up that end.  I don't like lose ends.  Obviously, they will be removed from the father, but what happens to them after?

But at some point, due to a more lenient sentencing than he might have received had he not been so cooperative with the police and told the circumstances surrounding his brother's  murder, Gray is released - about 20 years older.  He returns to the tree-house and walks around it noting the damage, the disrepair of the little room where he had shared such a friendship with three little girls.  The tree itself seems to be dying... but on the other side, he sees three tiny little shoots sprouting up from the ground that will symbolize hope.  The movie will end after a moving soliloquy by Gray on the strange complexity of life, love, friendship, and hope as the camera pans upward through the dying, but beautifully silhouetted leaves of the tree in the sunset...

Anyway - that's it at this point.  Its very rare for me to develop a fully formed story from start to finish in chronological order... dream or not.... So, I'm thinking, MAYBE that this is God's answer - the story I should develop and pursue... If ONLY I knew how to write it in screen-play format.......  I wanted to get the date of the story's conception documented somewhere, so... seems like this Blog is it.  I think it would make a GREAT movie... would LOVE to see Hugh Jackman in this role as Gray....

As I think about it, I think of Shel Silverstein's book, 'The Giving Tree'.  Its ALWAYS been one of my favorites.  Perhaps in some ways this would be an homage to that book - or, at least, partly inspired by... I wonder if he/she's still alive...

~Kaylie (Nov. 30th, 2013)

'Playing To My Strengths': Another Conversation With God (updated)

I once had a mentor.  Brilliant, Godly man.  Among many other things he tried to get through to me was his frustration that I have all this potential, but I don't act on it due to my own low self-image and reservations around people.  I understand his frustrations - still do.  And I still care about him very dearly.  But I think with irony of his frustration now in that this very next day after I've said my last goodbye's to him, I had this conversation with God that I will post below.

Just as background, I think I offended a friend yesterday, and I was trying to figure out why.  (I could be totally off-base and reading FAR too much into things, but even so, the point remains.)  Then I moved on from there to asking God what the next step is now - for the past year and a half or so I've been struggling with unemployment and have lost the last position I was at due to some health issues.  It all kind of ties together in my head, but it will never cease to amaze me how God breaks into my thoughts at times like these and how He talks to me - how He knows me SO WELL and knows EXACTLY what it is that needs said to re-direct my thinking.  I might also note that even as I'm typing here, I got my 'Daily Bible Quote' in my email Inbox, and it is Psalm 32:8.  "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye."  :) *Shakes head*

It's with that kind of awe and amazement that I post the conversation - and because if any of my writing DOES make it to publication, I'd like others to in some way understand what kind of personal, intuitive, loving, firm, infinitely wise and perfect God - and Counselor - that He is, even when it's hard to hear what He has to say.  Its ALWAYS worth listening.

So, on asking Him, 'So, what is the next step?' here's what He replied.

God: "Play to your strengths."

Me: Play to my strengths.  *sigh*  Well, we've been through this before, but - Okay, what ARE my strengths.  *pondering*

God: "You can communicate."

Me: 'Communicate?! I communicate with my friends, but they can't make decisions for me or always be there to tell me what to do.  With anyone else -- What for?  There's so few worth communicating with.  Getting close will only find them betraying or hurting me in the end.'

God: "No, that's what the world told you. That's what's made you jaded.  But when you really want to get a point across - particularly with the written word - you do, and you do it powerfully.  Uncommonly powerfully.  I put that in you."

Me: '...I guess I can sing a little.'

God: "You can."

Me: 'But there's a TON of others who sing just as well, and many better.'

God: "Ah, but sing AND communicate/write like you can?  THAT is a rare gift.  Use them.

You see my dear, you typically cope in one of two ways.  You either play the wounded/pity card, which worked well as a cute kid or even young adult."

Me: 'I'm not so cute anymore.  Not so sweet anymore either, at least not all the time.  But most of that emotion IS real...'

God: "*shrug* The emotion and wounding isn't bad, untruthful OR wrong, but if that's all you put behind it...even your friends can grow tired of it.  Especially when you combine it with your 2nd coping mechanism."

Me: '...'  (I know what He's referring to but don't like to say.   Unfortunately, He has no such reservations. *smile*)

God: "Defiance.  You put up a block.  A wall.  Pretend not to be affected or care too much.  THAT is both a lie AND an irritant to friends and strangers alike.  Its irritating and offensive to your friends because they WANT to love you when they know well enough when things affect you and you push them away when they step towards you.  (Like I did yesterday to my friend - long story.) To strangers... well, it's uninviting.  Certainly unwelcoming - as you mean it to be."

Me: '...so?'

God: SO - use-your-strengths.  Together.  That's the next step.  And you haven't mentioned another strength I've given you a particular proclivity for.

Me: (Again I stubbornly remain silent.)

God: "Your capacity to love.  And to feel.  To empathize.  Darling, if you can put that together with your ability to communicate - to EXPRESS - perhaps even with some singing - there is more power in THAT than in any other form of pity or defiance you could EVER evoke on your own.  THAT is your strength.  THAT is who you are.  In Me."

Me: '...And all of that inspired by fiction stories?  *smile*  Youth fiction, fantasy.  (My current favorites: 'The Hunger Games Series'/'Harry Potter'/'LOTR's Trilogies')  Wouldn't Cindy love that?  (Cindy is a not-so-high-on-fantasy friend.)  

God: *smiles back* "I use whatever I can."

Me: (the irony in that last is that I've said that myself so many times to Cindy.)

*shakes head*

So, building off of that, I guess my remaining question is:  HOW do I use that right now in my current situation?  I've been in this place SO MANY TIMES in the past nearly 2 years.  But I can't just stop looking for work and write!  I HAVE to have income coming in!  And even as I do write and combine that with the 'feeling/empathy/intuition/whatever', WHAT is it exactly that I should be writing?   And singing - while I take joy in the opportunities I do have right now - like yesterday's concert - those opportunities are STILL limited and its not under my control when and in what capacity I can do that in ministry...  WHAT exactly is God trying to tell me to DO with all of this???  Blog?  Other than heightening my own appreciation for God's wisdom (which I DO value and find great fascination and amusement in btw), how is that possibly helping ANYONE else?!  Urr!  And I KNOW this is not going to be one of those times where God is forthcoming with direct application.  That's really SO frustration!  Why does He seem to...withhold practical answers when I most need them?  *Sigh*  Again, that really DOES sound just like my former-mentor.  He pointed out some things to me, tried to help me organize my thinking, but he couldn't tell me what decisions to make or how to implement things... what, exactly, to DO with it all...  URRG!

********

(updated Tues., Nov. 26th, 1 day after initial posting)

Well... God just had His perfect "I told you so." moment. :) I just heard of a miracle that I had missed on Sunday till now - during that 'final farewell' to my former-mentor service - 2nd hour.  Maybe it was small to others, but to ME...  Praise God!  Just  learned that there were some attendees at that service that I thought it would take a MIRACLE to see... but it happened.  It happened, in some very small part I think, because God made me speak on my feelings and intuitions and invite them - put two of those 'strengths' together as He was telling me.  While I take NO personal credit for that (I couldn't - I myself was questioning whether or not it had been a mistake to do so up till  now), it -- Well, I say through grateful tears that it feels like I was able to GIVE something now to someone I care about very deeply, when I hadn't otherwise been able to do so.  Indirect, and perhaps never known to that person, but... God made it happen.  I am SO thankful!

I must now admit how difficult I've been finding it to prepare my heart for Thanksgiving this year... Thanksgiving is 2 days away and I hadn't even realized how difficult its been myself until now.  Just because of current circumstances and... well, a LOT of things...  But if nothing else could have prepared me - THIS I think takes me to a level of thankfulness I needed where nothing else could have.  Thank you Jesus!  Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!

Dying Again

Author's Note: What does my brain get up to when I'm asleep?  I don't know sometimes...  As theological as the title might suggest, this isn't really about that.  Maybe it will go quite well with  my 'Alice In Wanderland' game.  Would seem to fit.

5:27am

Thought rolls about in my head like a marble in a drain

Don't open your eyes until you're sure you're quite sane

Doesn't help the madness to give it just one name

Anger and fear and melancholy too

How many  monsters are after you?

Laughter is looming from which way ahead?

Are we still alive?  Or just mostly dead?

Tis a cancer, tis a fever of the brain

Still sitting still, will breathe again

Black crow, black crow sitting in a tree

Can you see me? Or are you me?

Take a deep breath, numbness will recede

But just how far did you bleed?

Banished to the dream with a crack on the head

Limbs start to move, but are made of lead

For butter, for butter, for butter he cried

With a deep and heavy sigh, we slowly died

Dreams are awake, but do we sleep still?

We think we're alive, but we stand quite still

Whose little puppet have we become?

Moving about, but struck quite dumb

He shakes my head, I move my  hand

But only to slap at the fly in the sand

Where are you?  Where are you?

You regurgitate light

Are you part of dawn? Or is it still night?

Nothing seems quite right...

I wouldn't blame them now

For saying I'm losing this fight...

So much for praying in the night....

**************

Note: Sometimes I think I'm meant to be an alternative musician.  Anyone know a good electric guitarist for this next one?

You're just passing by

How many times did you die?

Is it of much use to cry?

You either smile or you sigh

Pale skin and too much left to try

Give up, you give it up

With just one final toast to the sky

Hands over face, it just doesn't help to cry

So wipe your face, wipe your face and return to the light

I don't wanna stay this way

My life is more than just a name

My spirit is not deaf and dumb and lame

Do you think its all a game?

No no no no

I don't wanna stay the same

Lord, please help me say Your name

I don't believe in fairy-tales this lame

Dear Lion, are You finally uncaged?

*music ends - just a voice*

"Edgy?"  *snickers*  "Nah.  Nah.  Just brilliantly mucked up by life."

"High on the down-stick, low on the high.  Its a wonder I get anywhere, anywhere at all."

Disillusioned Sky

Sometimes looking up does not help

Ideals do not help when they are cracked and worn themselves

And love is like a broken sky that scatters like black butterflies when the wind blows too hard

And it, and all that once meant 'together' falls apart like so many shattered stars

White and black and glistening with unresolved tears

Disillusioned hope and unsatisfied dreams

One would think that after so many great chances, so much disenchantment

And lies that reveal themselves as truths, truths revealing themselves as lies

That a heart can only grow so jaded from them before it stops believing...

And yet I have still believed...

Still believed and am emptied all over again

Like a broken statue fallen on its knees

Pressing my face willfully into the dirt I breathe

Though breathing cracks my insides to match the fractures without

Tears apart seams too many times mended

Too often re-torn apart

My fingers play with the frayed red stitching as of blood ever-trickling

That has never fully dried

Wounds too old and deep to heal with any amount of time

Scars can run deeper than veins of gold

Less shiny, but just as costly to a heart-sick soul

Weariness and pensiveness collide in a frustrated dance of unending conflict

Why, oh why, do I ever try to look past the stains of regret

That grow ever stronger through the years

More deeply rooted, more a part of what I am

As chiseled into my being as the fingers that were wrought of stone

The heart of flesh so jealousy guarded, far too often encased in cold silence

Too weak to break free from its stone-mountings

Moored in the darkness of some unseen night

And this at least I cling to, this at least I still try

To remain a part of the promise that keeps breathing

That keeps vain hope alive...

What chance is there for these broken wings of despair to right and to one day fly?

I don't know... I don't know...

And what dreams...

What dreams may erstwhile fly...

Author's Note: No, I don't own the pictures.  Each one has the copyright info. though I believe...

'Dear Gabe'

Dear 'Gabe',

It seems strange, in a way, writing to you.  And in another way, not so very strange at all.  You were never born, yet you existed.  You died, but have lived more fully than anyone alive that I know.  You didn't have a face or a name for 5 years after your death, but now your name and what might-have-been your face haunts me in my most quiet moments.  I can see you in my waking hours, in my son and in my own reflection.  I can see you too in the sunrise, feel you in the way my heart swells with pride when I look at Briton - your older brother.  It has taken years to even acknowledge that I could love you.  Now, your brief, so sudden life, and death, will not leave my mind.

I don't understand why its different with you than it was, or is, with your adopted-out sister Clarisse.  I never felt a sense of ownership with her.  I never let her 'belong' to me.  Now she belongs to another.  But you - though you've never really belonged to anyone except God - so many years later, your life so much briefer, I feel an odd connection to you.

You were conceived about a year after your sister was given up for adoption in CA.  We were still living there and your older brother Briton was about 3 years old.  I'm sorry to say that I was not happy when I learned that I was pregnant with you.  In fact, so close was it to when your sister was born and the adoption complete, I was angry and very scared.  Though never claiming you sister emotionally or physically (I never even wanted to hold her after her birth - she went immediately to her adoptive parents), still the pregnancy and adoption process were trying and traumatic.  Your father's and my families had had no knowledge of her whatsoever.  In fact, we'd left for CA from MD barely a few days before it became very obvious that I was pregnant.  We'd driven across country with your then 2 yr. old brother Briton.  We'd gotten 'stuck' in Albuquerque, NM for a few weeks due to car trouble, but finally made itr to CA where we lived with the adoptive parents for the duration of that pregnancy and her birth.  Living with them and constantly being aware of the baby's impending adoption was hard despite the fact that they are very kind and generous people.  To me, it was a relief to birth her, to sign her over, and be out on our own again, though I never allowed myself to acknowledge any emotional attachment to her whatsoever.  Even now.  And quite honestly, I don't want to - as horrible as some  may think it.

We'd found an apartment and while things were now supposed to be 'perfect', our plans to prosper in lovely central CA, tings were not.  I sunk into a deep, anxiety-high depression and wanted, more than anything else, to escape from myself and any recognition of what I had done and become.  I had very little contact with my family and no friends.  So - when I heard t hat I was pregnant AGAIN, it was more than I coudl bear.  My memories of those first weeks are vague, but I believe we saw the doctor to question abortion.  Your father did not approve, but did not know how to confront me on it or communicate his feelings.  I was desperate and afraid.  So one night I cried out to God, whom I still believed in but was not following.  I told Him, "God, I know you hate me, for who I am, all I've done, and what I've become.  But how could you do this again?  How could you let me get pregnant again?  For this child's sake and for mine?  I CAN'T go through this again!  So just take it back!  Take 'it' back!  "It" was you Gabe...

Hmm... I interrupt myself...  I've gotten this far before... A recitation of the facts, a list of events that happened.  Maybe not SIMPLE to relay, but, relayed.  For all the difficulties already lying therein, the story has an even deeper and more hurtful side...  No point in pausing now I suppose, there was a little more yet of the tale that I've spoken before... 

The next morning, or maybe it was a day or two later - my mind was hazy on time then at best - I got up and was bleeding, cramping pretty horribly.  I expelled a large clot into the toilet.  I don't know what I was expecting to see, but it looked as though the 'clot' had a knot of gray tissue at its center.  I called the hospital, asked if there was someone I could talk to about it, ask what was happening... but I knew.  I've never really been stupid.  Foolish.  Not a 'quick study' one might say.  Naive.  Selfish.. a thousand more adjectives, take your pick.  But I knew.  And eventually, I found someone kind enough at the hospital to tell me honestly.  Yeah, that's a miscarriage.  That's a baby in your toilet.  I was uncertain what to feel...  Relief felt so cold somehow.  But there was some of that.  But I think easily the strongest emotion was certainty.  I KNEW that I had just killed my child.  It wasn't a 'clean' death, by a dr. in some dr.'s office.  But the result had certainly been the same...  Surprised maybe, a little?  That God had actually heard me when I hadn't been given a sign (or so I thought then) of a response from Him before?  That the first sign of a response from Him in my  life had been such a cold one?  Yeah.  That too.  You see, it wasn't enough that I had considered abortion, that I had considered it once before, but given the child away instead.  This time, I had killed my child, of all things, with a PRAYER.  How - utterly - despicable.  

See, Gabe, I had never really stopped believing in God... I'd known He existed from the time I was old enough to say 'Yesus.'  I can't remember a time when I did NOT know that He existed.  Even in those years I've just been relaying when I hated Him, when I wanted nothing more than to hide from Him, run away from Him, get as far away as possible from Him, make believe - insist even to my own heart - that He had never wanted or meant me to be His.  Still, I knew He was there.  And just before I had begun the full-blown running period, in fact, I had issued Him a challenge.  'Okay God,'  I'd prayed.  'If there's EVER been any truth to the words that You love me, (and you certainly haven't been showing it or stooping down to help me, to get me away from my mother, to stop her from hurting me, to stop my father from dying and leaving me with her, to let me stay with my aunt - the only person who ever really believed in me and wanted me around - to help me be good enough at something, to let me at least do something half-way as good as my perfect siblings, to do anything for me when I needed you the most) then You can come after me.'  Well... He DID come after me.  But only after subjecting me to the very worst of my worst enemy.  Not my mother, not death, not dad's memory of a cold foreign body in a box that was missing my dad's 'self', not the constant questioning of everyone in my life of, 'When will you measure up?', not even the devil.  Myself.  And with this "first" direct response, to a prayer to 'take it back', He was showing me that He DID exist and WAS listening...

Well, there it was then.  There was my answer.  Yes, He was there.  Yes, at least for a few moments, He was paying attention.  Yeah.  I had just become a murderer....  What further confirmation did I need that all of those people in my life had been right?  That I was disgusting, doomed to failure, and would NEVER come close to being what others were.  Would always be a disappointment, and a failure.  See, I thought that I could prove them wrong by running away and doing my own thing.  Instead... I had only managed to prove them right.  I had never been more sure of that than in that moment when I knew I had prayed you to death.  Not even when I gave your sister away...

You would think that that was rock bottom.  Finally.  But it wasn't.  Not really.  There were several more years of hell.  I won't relay them all here, but having to leave California and my big, illusory dreams of happiness and love, living with your father's family and being blamed for all the wrong things he and I had done - by his family as well as my own, living through your father's 'confession' of the unspeakable secret - that your sister had existed and been given away, the social worker visit, the custody fight and terror of losing your brother Briton, the worst terror I'd ever known, being called clinically unstable... just to name a few.  But that's not where things progressed in the story of you.  In fact, it wasn't for several more YEARS that I even thought of you again in more than a passing way... And then it was because I began feeling this nagging sense in the back of my mind of guilt.  I was familiar with guilt alright, but this seemed somehow different.  My life and Briton's too were certainly different.  He and I had our own place.  We lived close to my sister and your uncle and two cousins (Bryce came along later).  I was working and holding down a job, trying to learn how to pay bills and be responsible, something I'd never had an example of before.  We... were back to following God, desperately clinging to Him in fact, and in a church that was a place I'd only IMAGINED existed before.  A place that we'd both always needed.  A home - a placed called 'West Shore Evangelical Free'.  I'd met not just one person, but several, who managed to convince me that true Christian love - and forgiveness - existed.  Went to a Ladies Bible Study or two.  Told much of my story to a Sunday school group of people that I didn't know well.  Cried when I did too.  Even made a few actual friends.  And one of those friends decided to pay for me to come to a Women's Retreat, even though I didn't really want to go... Never having really liked gatherings of women she had to work pretty hard to convince me to go. :p Cry groups, that sort of thing.  Then went to my 2nd Women's Retreat where a very nice Christian speaker was speaking.  She began to tell us all about how she'd had a miscarriage and how much that had hurt, and there the twinge started becoming painful.

The speaker went on, of course, in her story, talked about the daughter she had with special needs and the other hard things she'd been through.  But I was still stuck back there at her miscarriage and how devastated s he'd been...  My persistent lady friend, Cindy, decided go buy me one of this speaker's books about her miscarriage.  I was quite honestly afraid to read it, but during one of our quiet times, I did crack it open, and... I was right.  It was there in print.  "I was angry,"  This mother wrote of her miscarriage.  "There were so many other young, irresponsible mothers who just didn't care anything at all about their babies lives, who got abortions to get rid of something they'd never wanted and never thought about that child again, young women who just didn't care.  I had done everything right.  I had tried to lead a good Christian life.  Married a Christian man, raised other Christian children... I prayed and prayed for this child to live.  And it died anyway."  Those aren't exact quotes... But what had been stirring in my gut now had its clear face, and a name.  Shame.  How many other wonderful Christian women who DID do everything write, who blamed themselves for some mysterious mistake anyway while being perfectly innocent, who prayed and begged and pleased with God to keep their children, had lost them anyway? ...  And which one of them could possibly NOT have had moments of the same blatant accusation against the rest of us who did NOT want their own pregnancies?  Even worse, those women and their accusations were, in large part, right.  Or... at least so I believed at the time.  To me, it was another nail hammered into the scarred and still bleeding casket of my heart.  Yeah, I really HAD been that evil, that much of a disappointment, that rebellious little girl that had I'd always been...  A child who had never measured up and had become a murderer through a prayer.  All those nice, good Christian women who'd done everything right and pleaded for their children's lives and still lost them... And I'd prayed for God to take it back, and He'd listened...  

I spent an afternoon crying with my friend, not really understanding how to put the shame into words, something that was INCREDIBLY frustrating for me because always before, words had been my gift, my way of expressing those feelings which I couldn't otherwise figure out how to communicate.  I guess she must have understood enough of what I was saying to assure me, "You didn't kill your baby."  It was polite, and kind of her to say... but I didn't really believe her.  I'm STILL not sure that I do... in fact, I might as well admit, I still don't...  I love her.  And I trust her in most other matters, even when we don't completely agree.  But... *sigh* Yeah, I still think she's wrong.  But at that time, since I had managed to get across what was bothering me, I couldn't do any more than that, and so we headed back to our room.  "He did have a name you know."  I said, just before we went back inside.  "His name was Gabriel Josiah."  She smiled at me kindly and said, 'Thank you for sharing.'  Well, at least now, you had a name...

(have to take a short break) 

 After that, I - there have been glimpses of the hurt... But I think for the most part I swallowed these things again, dreading bringing them to light once more for examination like a princess dreading bringing a horribly diseased secret from her pocket to examine it in the light...  One particularly painful period was when my sister gave birth to her 3rd child, Bryce... Then, it was just an awareness of extreme sadness that I couldn't understand... But I loved that little baby - my nephew. :) Love him still.  Today I spent part of an afternoon with him and his sister playing in the fall leaves in fact....  I remember NEEDING to show that baby to Briton in the hospital room, having Briton hold him (which he did, shyly of course.) 

You know Gabe, I know this is a little off-track, but just recently when this all started coming up again, I think that maybe why I don't seem to have much regret or emotional attachment to your sister Clarisse and her adoption and I DO with you is because Clarisse is so easy to justify.  No, I didn't want her, not at that time anyway.  But Clarisse I see happy, smiling pictures of, and I KNOW she's in a good, loving home with people that will always want and care about her.  Even if I gave her away selfishly too (yeah - figure that one out why don't you), she ended up in a good place.  You, however, ended up as a grayish blob of flesh floating in a toilet...

Back on track, just within the past few months, I've been thinking more and more about you again... It seems to come in stages, maybe my minds way of dealing with someone excruciating that I can't take in all at once.  Somehow, it seems, I've taken on that shame and guilt about what happened to you and attached it to people that I do know have wanted children and lost them... In one way, it doesn't make sense, especially because with some of these women, I've really shared no more than a few words - maybe not even that.  I don't know them.  They don't know me, and they CERTAINLY don't know about you and what I did to you... And yet somehow, I feel beneath them.  I feel like they must hate me, SHOULD hate me, WOULD hate me if they knew - and that would only be right.  Its just so unfair.  They DID do everything right.  They were good mothers.  They knew HOW to be good mothers and to love their children in a Godly way.  I've never really had a clear sense of how to do that - though I try so DESPERATELY to be a good mom to Briton... My mother loves me and always has, but she set such a poor example of how to love your children well... It left me little to work with in terms of example of being a good Godly mom... Now, I can only look at other mothers, yes some of those ones who I now feel only shame around, and try to figure out what they know that I don't, how they 'do things right' with the kids they do have and have raised... 

Its interesting, one such mother I do know pretty well - and love very dearly actually.  I feel jealous that her kids had, and have her as a mom.  And while I do feel some shame (though I don't know that I'd tell her to her face), I have NEVER felt blamed.  Such a beautiful lady... 

And then there's another... one I DON'T know well at all, although I DO or --- I guess I should say I USED to know the father very well.... For whatever reason (I'm sure if one were to have the patience and wherewithal to unravel the convoluted mess of circumstances for it they could figure it out) I've begun to feel absolutely SURE must hate me for your death.  Somehow that shame has attached to her and I become that shame - it attaches to my heart whenever I see her face... or his really too.  They'll be gone soon... but I know the shame won't go away with them...  And the poor man (who at one time knew me so well) simply has no clue why I can't look him, or his wife, in the eye anymore... Though, I suppose, it is fortunate that he has other reasons for not wanting to...

....

I'm told that... I need to work on correcting faulty thinking... to not think of your death as a horrible, disgusting tragedy, but rather as God extending Hism ercy to me, and to you Gabe, in a time when we really shouldn't have been together - you shouldn't have been born..  My head tells me there's some truth in that...  That same person also is the one who suggested I write this letter to you... I had already been thinking of writing a letter to those 'miscarriage moms' expressing my shame and apologies too.  But I think they were right too in that I needed to write to you.  Clearly, I'm writing to you first.

.....

You know uh... there's been so much more going on in my life these past few weeks than just this hurting concern over you, but somehow now as I think of you and struggle to begin the next step in 'recovery' over this, instead of empty platitudes or some sort of undeserved comfort, I hear the words ringing in my mind of an old hymn...

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine...

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine...

Heir of salvation, purchase of God

Born of His Spirit

Washed in His blood...

This is my story, This is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

This is my story, this is my song

Praising my savior all the day long

Perfect submission, perfect delight!
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest!
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, This is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

This is my story, this is my song

Praising my savior all the day long...

 ******************************************************************************


(Not sure if I'm done with this yet or not, but... need to find something much more 'mindless' to do for a little bit... Pray I'll be brave enough to go to church tomorrow...)

Will Never Be/'Dear Gabe'

Author's Note: I... don't know the last time I've had this much trouble writing something, and I say that because this poem - song - whatever you come to call it is directly connected to what my next post will be, entitled, 'Dear Gabe'.  In fact, this post may not make much sense at all without reading the latter... And maybe that's just me - my  own attempt at subterfuge, to make it more difficult to understand...less harsh, but no less true.  I don't know.  What I DO know is that these words, and this next letter ('Dear Gabe') have taken years to emerge from my consciousness and make it onto a page.  Whatever they're worth, to me or to anyone else who might happen across them, I can't even ascertain that.  I only know that somehow, in the same way as others might draw a picture or sing a song, through my own written word is the only way some stories are able to be told...

(As much as I've been thinking about it for the past few weeks, I haven't had time to finish the next letter 'Dear Gabe' yet and sit down to write it all up.  I hope to do that this weekend.)

Will Never Be

 I am falling

Falling

Falling apart and on my knees

In the mirror

This stranger with my face

Recklessly marked with tragedy

You remind me again who you are

Broken skies have flown apart before

Locked away the pieces of my heart

Time you can't tell me just where to start

When was the first time you walked away
With my heart?

I look around

Then close my eyes

Where did the truth diverge from lies?

Where is hope hidden behind these eyes?

Where does this page turn

And the next one begin?

***

You don't have to tell me

You've been near all this time

I know it because I'm alive

Just invisible in my need

No greater tragedy

If I just would have turned to You

And entered Your arms

Things wouldn't have been so hard

Or maybe just less lonely

Misery was a pauper

Out walking on my own

If only I'd known

Just how far I'd flown

Just how hard the shards of my heart had grown

And caught in the middle of my strategy

Were angry rantings and misery

How long would it take

Before I could break completely?

There wasn't much of me left to spare

Nor would I have dared 

To care had You tried

***

But what had grown

Had graciously flown

Back where it belonged

And now worlds away

All I can say...

Is where are you angel?

 Where is the laughter?

Where are the tears?

Where has your voice gone

Through all of these years?

Two hands and two eyes

Two lives intertwined

Desperately dependent on being three

But lost because of me

I had forgotten you

It was the easier thing that I could do

Just to get through

What life might have looked like

Through yet-unformed eyes

Was too tragic and dark

Too bitter and stark

For me to subject you to

Now I see you in others tears

I look back in time through all these years

The gift that you were

The miracle that I should have clung to

How can they forgive

What they just don't know?

And I can never tell them so

***

Father forgive me

For neglecting this mercy

That he would never come to be

I just haven't been able to see

*********************************************

Dear God

Dear God,

Please take a memo.  Its me.  I still need You.  And as You've promised You'll never leave me or forsake me, I need You now.  My bones are weak and weary, my brain too tired too think, my body numbed yet crying out.  I don't know what to pray, cannot seem to feel, cannot seem to think.  There is too much happening right now for me to bear.  You've promised that I wouldn't face more than I could bear, so I need You to be my strength and bear up this weight that is holding me down and motionless right now.

Battle Never Ends

Author's Notes:  Don't ask me why I'm rhyming today, I usually don't.  It creates a false expectation of rhythm that I can never quite keep up with or maintain, so the stanzas come across stumbling and out of balance.  I don't think I've ever enjoyed my 'work' when it rhymes, but this just seemed to flow out very quickly and naturally, so... I just let it.  Drop the smoking box, then walked away.

Departed again, you fickle sense of balance

Though not from my mistakes

Perhaps through misguided focus

Not enough to have pin-points on the graph

Marks on a grid

Locations on a map

When the compass keeps spinning out of orbit

A ragged feather in my cap

Not enough to tip the scales ever in my favor

When a feather can knock them askew

Not enough to frame in rose-wood and cherry hue

When in the picture remains memories of you

Not enough to remain and breathe

And abide in solid hands

Still so often must I battle

So often must I stand

Victories make battles worth it in the end

Yet still when I lay down to rest

I wonder when I must fight again

Ever vigilant, but ever weary

My eyes cannot be still

My allies grow farther apart

And my enemies merge together

In some dreadful, evil swill

Who can resist while staring a demon in the eye

Ignoring its relentless taunts

Yet still hear yesterday's trembling cry

Look back and weep

Look forward and wonder

See all that has been built

Remember all that was torn asunder

Is there a purpose to this madness?

To fighting without end?

I know the prize will be mine in the end

But how far must I bend?

My eyes are weak from crying

My vision blurred with smoke

From a fire ever kindled

That the enemy will never cease to stoke

Understanding may be a faulty thing

As it answers fewer questions than it asks

Completing one more goal

To be handed ten more tasks

I want to cry 'Foul!'

PLEASE, stop and let me rest!

But there are no respites in this game

There's always another test

Today my faltering breath turns sour

Pools in my throat

Turn putrid in my stomach

Become a heavy, discordant note

Others seem so steady

Like they've forgotten how to fail

Yet forever I feel I take up

The dreaded hammer and nail

It was my sin that held you there

Seems my pain alone you carried

Even then enough to bow your back

My ways so thoughtless and harried

What is the purpose of the hint of flower

If the stem cannot bear its own weight?

Why must I, with the smallest of why's

Be ram-shackled to a cart of hate

What You have forgiven Lord, still I despise

What You have sewn, I continue to rip

What You've let go into the breeze

I cling to with the tightest grip

Why does memory never fail me

In the times where I most need it to?

It should be so easy letting go

But it seems impossible for me to do

My head hurts
It HURTS from this incessant malaise!
No, a pill won't cure this self-affliction
I can only pray for those brighter days

A Pastor's Life

I've told so many stories

Re-told them many times

I guess I've lost the gravity

To repeat so many lines

Still every moment, every gesture

Feels too weak to express

The ways You've always moved me

Even in my unworthiness

They have said that I'm a leader

And I know they mean it well

But I'm just a fellow wanderer

Panting at the well

Maybe I have been a dreamer

Shared a dream, one or two

But every roadway, every song

Keeps coming back to You

I've longed to bring them comfort

To carry loads too big to bear

I've wanted to give them wisdom

The most I can do is share.

I always want to be in control

To be the man I need to be

I've walked so fast and come so far

And I'm still where I used to be

I've prayed for so many

And God You know I've hurt for them too

But after years, I still come running back

To be held by You

Maybe all is worth nothing

If I can't look back and count the cost

But I've seen so many reach You

That just like me, once were lost

 It isn't my illusions that I was a far better man

It's how You used this sinner

To be a part of Your plan

So thank You, dear Jesus

As I kneel here on the floor

That You've let me keep my promise

To keep Your word as my sword

In the end, too many riches

Than could be told by just one man

A life-time, or a thousand

Building castles in the sand

That only pale by far in relation

To the glory of You we'll see

One day when my Jesus

You call us back to thee